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Digest -- U.Va. News Daily
Arena work forces Massie Road closings
Motorists traveling between the University Hall area to North
Grounds will have to take the long way around for most of the
summer. Two months of road work will close sections of Massie
and Copeley roads in order to install new electrical duct banks
to supply power to the new John Paul Jones Arena.
(Top News Daily, May 29)
Meeting
brings state’s top scientists here
Stem-cell research, nanotechnology and even the Lewis & Clark
expedition shared the spotlight with a Nobel laureate during the
last week in May — all part of the annual meeting of the
Virginia Academy of Sciences, hosted by the University. The keynote
address was given by 2002 Nobel laureate in chemistry John B.
Fenn of VCU.
(Top News Daily, May 26)
Study:
Gallstone procedure safe for pregnant women
A study by doctors at the Health System has found that a form
of X-ray therapy for treating gallstones, called endoscopic retrograde
cholangiopancreatography, or ERCP, is safe for pregnant women.
“If pregnant women have stones in the bile duct or related
disease and need immediate intervention, this study shows that
the safest way is ERCP with minimal radiation and fetal monitoring,”
said Dr. Michel Kahaleh, a gastroenterologist and assistant professor
of internal medicine. If left untreated, gallstones can have serious
implications for both the fetus and the mother.
(Top News Daily, June 9)
Defense
Dept. grant boosts prostate cancer study
The Department of Defense has awarded a U.Va. Health System research
team $500,000 to study the spread of prostate cancer to bone tissue,
and to investigate promising preventive treatments. The study
is led by Gary Balian, a professor of orthopedic research and
professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at U.Va. Jay Fox,
professor of microbiology and assistant dean of research, is also
involved in the research, along with Robert Sikes, a former U.Va.
professor who is now a professor of biological sciences at the
University of Delaware.
(Top News Daily, June 2)
Angioplasty
procedure improved
If you think of balloon angioplasty as sort of plunging of clogged
arteries, then a stent is a piece of scaffolding designed to keep
the arterial walls propped up and blood flowing freely afterward.
However, in 8 to 25 percent of cases, the arteries became clogged
again, a process called restenosis. Now the Health System is offering
a new kind of stent, coated with an antibiotic called sirolimus,
that helps prevent re-clogging. The first drug-eluting stent at
U.Va. was inserted in a patient’s heart vessel on May 21
by Dr. Michael Ragosta, director of interventional cardiology
and associate professor of internal medicine. “The drug-eluting
stents represent a major breakthrough in the treatment of patients
with coronary artery disease,” Ragosta said.
(Top News Daily, June 3)
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